ALEXANDRIA, VA (Mar. 3, 1998) -- I'm going to do an unusual thing
today. I'm going to actually request that you forward this Cash-King portfolio
report to anyone you know who is interested in saving money and investing.
Even as the Internet is honing our public markets, bringing greater efficiency
and equal access to information for all, Americans are still making some
basic mistakes with their money. They are mistakes that can be easily corrected.

I offer you four simple reminders and then close with a performance review
of the two portfolios that led up to the launching of our Cash-King site
here. To the four points first...

1. Do not invest if you have debt at interest rates above 10%.

Sure, sure... the stock market has risen at a rate in excess of 30% per year
over the last three years. But historically, common stock in the U.S. has
returned an average of 11% yearly growth. I see no forces in the 21st century
that should dramatically alter those returns for better or worse. And that
means that, over time, investors cannot meaningfully beat double-digit interest
rates on their debt. In fact, when you include 20-28% capital gains taxes
on your investments, you should really be paying down all debts carrying
rates above 8%, first.

Your bank isn't rooting for you to do this, but your bank probably isn't
Foolish... yet.

2. Be very careful about fees paid to financial planners.

Fees for financial services today are moving around faster than a rubber
ball under three spinning shells. There are front loads, back loads, 12b-1
fees. And there are hidden broker incentives. And there are firms taking
a percentage of your total assets. Can you imagine dropping by fool.com only
to find you had to pay 1% of your total savings just to enter our digital
door? This cut of your assets is pretty attractive if you have just a few
hundred bucks to invest, but it gets less attractive with every new dollar
of your savings. How so? Well, a financial advisor who is taking 1% of your
total assets is receiving $1 if you're investing $100, but $500 if you're
investing $50,000, and -- get this -- $50,000 if you're investing $5 million.

The more money that you have to invest, the more unreasonable are these fees
based on a percentage of your total assets. This is particularly true when
an S&P index fund, that which tracks the overall returns of the 500 largest
companies in America, charges you less than 0.25% of the cash you invest.

3. Avoid 91% of the mutual fund industry.

In the first two months of 1998, Americans invested over $32 billion into
mutual funds, of which a fairly significant portion dropped into the 91%
of managed mutual funds that have underperformed the market's average return
in the 1990s. Buying managed mutual funds today in hopes that they'll beat
the market is like betting on the Boston Red Sox to win the pennant. It hasn't
happened for decades. It might happen once, but then how many more decades
does a Fool have to wait before it happens again?

Managed funds are an even more unattractive option when you consider how
actively traded many of them are and how that trading affects both them and
you. For them, they get a tremendous amount of free research from brokerage
firms in exchange for all those trades, which enables them to sound smart
on CNBC and maybe even to launch an expensive newsletter or website. For
you, it just means you get bitten by taxes each year. Mutual fund distributions
are taxable, year after year. In essence, you're paying for your mutual fund
to get free research en route to its consistent underperformance of the market.

It just doesn't make sense to us when there are index funds, Spiders, and
then common stocks to buy and hold on your own.

4. Read five great books on your money.

A fourth Foolish step is just to read a handful of great books on your money.
Books by Philip Fisher, Peter Lynch, Martin Fridson, and yes (sickening
self-promotion) the Motley Fool. We poured heart and soul into our three
books, and there isn't a single financial business that has invested so much
time and money into educating individuals across the U.S. about their money.
Heck, read our books and the others for free in the aisles of your local
bookstore, or at your local public library, or pony up some cash and learn
the fundamentals about your savings and the public markets.

A $75 investment in learning should return you tens of thousands of dollars
in the years ahead. Every single American should make that investment, in
books or books on tape. And, of course, there's nothing that the suits on
the Street want you to do less than to educate yourself about your money.

Conclusion

Those four first steps could prove incredibly valuable for your family, friends,
investment clubs, co-workers, and certainly your bosses! Please feel free
to forward this report to any of them, either by e-mail or by printing and
delivering it to them. This report is governed by our copyright, which restricts
you from selling the report. But you may copy and deliver this for free to
your million closest friends.

What would happen if everyone in America turned Foolish? We'd start directing
our savings toward the businesses that best serve our needs -- from technology
to health care, from media businesses to snack-food franchises. The end result
would be a more efficient market designed around long-term business ownership,
which would have our corporations inextricably linked as servants to society.

And small investors, 1) rather than being persuaded by a cadre of financial
gooroos, 2) rather than relying on a national financial media that wants
to make Internet education look dumb or crooked, 3) rather than speculating
on short-term market movements, would buy & hold ownership positions
in superior businesses for their future and their children's future and would
try to learn more with the hundreds of thousands of others in their similar
situation.

There are plenty of examples of these forces in action right here in Fooldom,
but there's one right here in Cash-Kingdom. The media hasn't reported on
it, nope. But what about the Simpleton and MoneyHeavy Portfolios that came
before the launch of the Cash-King portfolio? They champion learning, and
the idea of holding down the cost of commissions, and the reasons to eliminate
yearly tax burdens outside of dividend payments, and the importance of knowing
more and more about the business that one owns.

This whole section in Fooldom is dedicated to buying and holding for 10-year
periods or longer. To make that point, I outlined two separate stock portfolios
(in the summers of 1995 and 1997) and committed to not trade out of any positions
for a ten-year period. Almost unthinkable. But the notions that underlie
these portfolios are simple, practical, logical, and yet they do directly
subvert so much of the coverage of and activity on Wall Street today.

Take a look at their performance relative to the S&P 500. Then consider
the low-cost untaxed qualities of the portfolios. Then wonder aloud why the
mutual fund industry gets so much ink and television time, while life here
proceeds quietly along without coverage!

Cash-King investing doesn't have you paying an annual percentage of your
total assets. It doesn't have you trading four times a week. It has you smiling
at the numerous financial publications that have led with headlines this
decade that encouraged individual investors to get out of their stock positions.
Cash-King investing doesn't have you paying capital gains taxes at every
turn. And, most importantly, it does demand that you gradually -- in the
years ahead -- learn more about the companies in which you invest. That will
have you reading and learning, yes, but we hope we've created an enjoyable,
accessible, and free entry point for you here in Cash-Kingdom.

With that, I close by presenting the
11 Steps to
Cash-King Investing for any of you who haven't read them yet. If you
have any questions or opinions about this report, please feel free to drop
them in the
Cash-King
Folder. And again, if you have friends or family with 401k plans, or
in investment clubs, or who have been investing for years... please feel
free to forward this report to them.